


Death Doesn't Discriminate

by Pippin



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6579871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin/pseuds/Pippin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a lengthy interview during which he was accused of murder, he realized that he had an uncommon talent.  Aaron Burr could tell if a person was going to die a premature and unnatural death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Doesn't Discriminate

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicating this to Blaire and Theo for always letting me bounce ideas off them (and feeding my ego I mean what).

At first, Aaron had thought that everyone was able to do what he could.  He had been only an infant when his parents had died; no one had thought twice about the two-year-old at two separate funerals who didn’t cry.  No one knew about his gift through his entire childhood and he didn’t mention it, thinking it common.

When he got a little older, however, and developed the habit of saying an elaborate—final—farewell to people the day before their unnatural deaths, he fell under suspicion.  After a lengthy interview during which he was accused of murder, he realized that he had an uncommon talent.

Aaron Burr could tell if a person was going to die a premature and unnatural death. 

There was no rhyme or reason to it—it wasn’t like he could name a time or place, or even, most of the time, _how_ the person was going to die, but he could always tell.  The gift seemed to work on its own will, but it was never wrong.  To tell originally, he had to be able to see the person, but then that person lingered, lingered until their death.  The day before a person died, Aaron knew it was going to happen.  He still didn’t know where or when within the day, but he knew that that particular person had only one more day to live.

Was it a gift or a curse?  He wasn’t actually sure.  He knew if someone was going to die, sure, but he was helpless to do anything about it.  He had accepted that fate long ago—he didn’t like it, but he also knew that he couldn’t save everyone.  Most people he didn’t even know the name of, just that they were fated to die.

He was in a bar one night, drinking perhaps more than he usually did—but he needed it; with the colonies on the verge of war with England, at least half the men he was coming across were slated for an early death—when a slight boy slid into the seat next to him.

“Pardon me—are you Aaron Burr, sir?”

Alexander Hamilton was a force of nature, one that wasn’t still enough to Aaron to get a read on.  Either he wasn’t going die before his time, seemingly an unlikely option with the fiery passion he demonstrated in his constant speech, or it was simply that the realization was coming later.  That happened sometimes, depending on the person.

“Let me offer you some free advice—talk less.”

Hamilton’s face fell drastically, almost comically.  “ _What_?”

Smile more—don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.”

“You can’t be serious.”  Hamilton looked completely incredulous.

“You want to get ahead?” Burr asked, dead serious,

“Yes.”

“Fool who run their mouths off wind up dead.”  Not a premonition from his gift, merely a simple observation that anyone could have made.  After all, people were getting killed for daring to speak out against the British rule in the colonies, something that Hamilton was definitely doing.

As if cued by Aaron’s thoughts, three young men burst into the tavern, clearly revolutionaries.  Actually, Aaron realized a moment later, he knew them.  They were revolutionaries—John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, and the Marquis de Lafayette—and, worse, they knew him, too.

“What time is it?” Laurens shouted, and Aaron immediately knew that he was going to die far too soon, far too young.

“Showtime!” the others replied.

“Like I said,” Aaron murmured to Hamilton, hoping that his words would be taken as due to the threat of being branded traitors and killed for that, not some supernatural knowledge.

“Drop some knowledge,” Laurens challenged Aaron, grinning from ear to ear.

He declined as graciously as he could, leading them into further taunts, asking him what he was stalling for.  Good god, it had to be a fluke that he hadn’t picked up any promise of death hanging over the Marquis or Mulligan.

“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?” Hamilton asked, eyes gleaming, before launching into a rapid-fire stream of words describing both who he was and what he was planning to do in his new country.

The four boys—that’s really all any of them were, with the possible exception of Mulligan—spun off into their grand plans for revolution and change, and they were starting to get dirty looks, not to mention the threat of someone calling up the regulars and having them all arrested.  Aaron had to step in.

“Geniuses, lower your voices—you keep out of trouble and you double your choices.  I’m with you, but the situation is fraught.  You’ve got to be carefully taught—” and he knew it.  His gift kicked back in with a vengeance and he knew that Hamilton was going to die, was going to be— “if you talk, you’re gonna get _shot_.”

* * *

Trying to warn Hamilton of his fate was completely futile.  Aaron felt like Cassandra of old, doomed to foretell the future yet never be believed.  Hamilton never listened, entirely convinced of his own superiority and invincibility.  He pushed the limits at every turn, throwing himself headlong into the war with no concern for his own health and safety, and Aaron could only watch.

Hamilton begged for command, ignoring his own good fortune.  As an aide-de-camp to General Washington himself, Hamilton was far better off than most everyone else in the Continental Army, but he still begged for a different assignment, courted death at every turn.  It was infuriating.  After all, Aaron knew that Hamilton was, at some point, going to get shot and die.  What more likely place for that fate to befall him in the midst of battle?

Even marriage didn’t stop Hamilton.  He loved his wife, but was still more than willing to die, no matter how much she needed him alive.  Burr waited every day for the realization that Hamilton was going to die, but it never came.

* * *

Through some bizarre twist of fate, Hamilton made it through the war.  Aaron didn’t understand it, but it had happened.  The more concerning fact of the matter was, though, that someone’s fate was set in stone.  No matter what choices Hamilton made, he was still going to die the same way.  There couldn’t be another war—Aaron couldn’t understand how the country itself would make it to the other side of a second war—but how else would Hamilton die from being shot?  A freak accident seemed to be the only option.

Aaron was working with Hamilton, watching the same burning passion that had propelled the boy—man, he was a man now—through the war shine in his law career.  Hamilton really was brilliant, if infuriating as hell.

The realization hit him in the middle of dinner one night.  John Laurens was going to die the next day.  The war was over—god damn it all, the war was _over_.  Laurens was going to die and the war was over and God almighty, Hamilton was going to be devastated.

It was a few more days, thanks to the delays in getting mail from South Carolina to New York, but it was clear when it happened, when Hamilton found out that his dear Laurens was dead.  There was no other option as to what had happened, not with the way Hamilton was acting.  He had come in one day, eyes red-rimmed, carefully ignored Aaron, and shut the door to his office, not opening it for anything.  He was still there when Aaron left, and the next day found Aaron unsure if Hamilton had arrived early or if he had just never left (the latter seemed more likely, to be honest).

Throwing himself into his work, work above all else, became a trend.  He had always done so, to the point of worry for the other aide-de-camps, but now Aaron didn’t know if Hamilton slept, if he ate, if he even went home.  He was clearly in his office—the scratching of his pen never ceased, and he worked on cases alongside Aaron when necessary—but everything had changed with the death of John Laurens.

To be entirely honest, if Aaron didn’t know with absolute surety that Hamilton was going to die from being shot, he would have thought that the other man would work himself to death.

* * *

After Hamilton was selected to General— _President_ Washington’s cabinet, Aaron saw him less, but it was clear that his work ethic hadn’t changed.  He was still pushing himself more than could possibly be healthy, but Aaron knew that there was nothing he could say to Hamilton.  The only person who could have made Hamilton slow down, made him stop, was dead.  Aaron had seen it back during the war, the way that Hamilton would stop, eat, sleep, anything, if John Laurens but said the word.  There had been speculation of a relationship beyond mere friendship between the two, but Aaron wasn’t going to speak to that.

* * *

Over the years Aaron had learned not to share his gift—it had only been met with suspicion or hatred.  But there were times when he wished that he could share what he knew, even if to only deaden the pain of a sudden and violent death.

He watched the Hamiltons mourn their son, dead before his time, a death that Aaron had known of since Philip had been born.  He offered his condolences, but a lifetime of knowing of deaths in advance had deadened his empathy towards the survivors—very few died in isolation; almost everyone had someone waiting for them to come home.

* * *

He shouldn’t have lost his temper.  Good god, he shouldn’t have lost his temper. 

The day before the duel was nerve-wracking.  Aaron spent the entire day waiting for some sign that what he was doing was the all-but-literal nail in Alexander Hamilton’s coffin, but it never came, which was a huge relief.

The morning came, both parties meeting as arranged in New Jersey, where they could duel without worrying about the law. 

Aaron knew that Hamilton could shoot.  The man had been a soldier, and a damn good one; of course he could shoot.  That meant it was Aaron’s life on the line.  He had to shoot so as to not lose his own life.

Hitting Hamilton was worrisome, but Aaron knew that he wasn’t going to die.  After all, if Hamilton was to die, it would have already revealed itself to Aaron.  He headed back across the river to New York, preparing himself for the barrage of written abuse he was sure to receive once Hamilton had recovered enough to pick up a pen—or, honestly, before he had recovered enough.  Aaron knew Hamilton, nothing would stop the man.

He stepped foot on New York soil and nearly collapsed.  _Stupid, stupid, stupid._

The next day.  Hamilton was going to make it through the night, but no more nights following that.  He was going to die of his wound the following day.

_If you talk, you’re gonna get shot._

He was the one who had shot Hamilton, who had survived against the odds.  He was the one who had—all those years ago, he had foreseen a murder that he was to be the one to commit.

He lost his gift after that. 

_Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints—it takes and it takes and it takes._


End file.
